DEXTRALIST SUPERSTITIONS

As it happens to be International Left-Handedness Day, why not tackle the issue of dextralism once more? -- Not as well-known as racism, sexism, or queerphobia, but nevertheless a form of discrimination. This article is about how the sinister side is omnipresent in superstition and magical thinking... Now I'm a freethinker in general, but also interested in folklore and the like. So please take these superstitions with a grain of salt (and, oui, the one with salt is featured on this list!).

Black cats, as well as corvids, bring good luck crossing a person's path from right to left, granting favourable times. But from left to right, the black cat or crow-relative is a bad omen.

Spilling sodium chloride, aka table salt, during meals, often by overturning the salt shaker, is also allegedly an evil omen. The most common contemporary belief requires you to toss a pinch of the spilt salt over your left shoulder, into the face of the shoulder devil (the angel is on the right -- remember any old Western cartoons where they appear) who lurks there.

The Scottish Play, the one with the usurper and the three witches and the indelible blood stains, left (pun intended!) its curse on me during the 4th centennial celebrations in the springtime of 2016, when I was to attend a performance of Mac**th in Valencia and mentioned its title (and surname of the titular usurpers) more than thrice. After attending the play without a hitch, my bad luck streak (which forced me to call my retelling of the story Los Usurpadores and omit the fatal Mac- surname) did not cease until I cast something over my left shoulder as well... this time, a frothy glob of spit into the faces of the three witches who haunted me!

If someone had a bad day, we say in Spanish "se ha levantado con el pie izquierdo". Unluckily, yours truly is left-footed as well... but luckily, she's generally a freethinker who does not pay much heed which foot she gets first out of bed, over a threshold, up some stairs or ladders...

Finally, engagement and wedding rings are worn on the left ring finger because, in a surprising twist, there is allegedly a vein or a meridian or nadi that leads straight to the heart from there! And we use our left hearts for systemic circulation (unless dextrocardia) and thus feel that our hearts are more on the left side... so in a heartbeat we have gone from dextralism to a sinistralist superstition, to end on a positive note!

1916 - EuroShakespeare and THE GREAT WAR

In the spring of 1916, one century ago, Shakespeare commemorations were popping up in honour of the 300th anniversary of the Bard’s death; remembrances in Europe, including the UK, played against the background of the first great World War. Photographs of soldiers in trenches were juxtaposed in press reports with special supplements honoring Shakespeare from February through April, 1916. Articles in the supplements made it clear that countries on both sides that were hammering each other in bloody conflicts were some of the greatest supporters of Shakespeare: England, Germany, France, Russia, and Norway.

Remarkably, in spite of wartime destruction, Europeans still remembered Shakespeare during 1916. Germany published a special issue of Simplicissimus, their weekly political humour magazine, dedicated to both Shakespeare and Cervantes, who also died in 1616. The Folger has recently acquired this issue, which features cartoons showing Sir Winston Churchill as a puffed-up Pistol – “a gull, a fool, a rogue” – from Henry V and US President Woodrow Wilson as Hamlet, saying, “The time is out of joint: O, cursed spite/ That ever I was born to set it right!” Shakespeare was especially admired in Germany, where his work had been performed since the 17th century. The English, of course, and the French, both of whom were fighting against Germany, also remembered Shakespeare. The Folger has the catalog of a special exhibition put on by the Bodleian Library at Oxford, as well as the program of a performance at Drury Lane Theatre in London “humbly offered by the players and their fellow-workers in the kindred arts of music & painting” in May 1916. Also in May, the Comédie Française held a special conference of “Hommage à Shakespeare.”

Perhaps the greatest Shakespearean tribute was organized by Sir Israel Gollancz, professor of English at King’s College, London. Gollancz wrote to many writers and Shakespeare scholars in different countries asking for their thoughts. These he edited and compiled into A Book of Homage to Shakespeare, which was published on April 23, 1916, the day Shakespeare had died 300 years earlier. The Folger Shakespeare Library is fortunate to own the archive of documents that he received, resulting in a remarkable collection in many languages, including Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Urdu. Gollancz’s dream was that “the world’s brotherhood… be demonstrated by its common and united commemoration of Shakespeare,” and he realized part of this goal in spite of the war.

art made tongue-tied by authority

Today morning, I watched a Catalan band's musicated version of sundry Shakespearean sonnets in the auditory of Jaime I University.
I am fascinated by one only line in particular, Verse 9 in Sonnet 66:

And art made tongue-tied by authority, 

Here, the Bard starkly, harshly contrasts art and authority. Thinking of the present day, my concerns about my own production (as well as that of others within fandom and even more subversive creative artists) are coming true.
That line was true to life in the days of Shakespeare and stayed thus for centuries: the Inquisition, Cromwell, Robespierre, Stalin, Hitler, Franco, and many others have clipped the wings of self-expression, sewing the lips of creative artists shut with wire (just like Loki's after losing the bet with the dwarves). I had hitherto thought that the scenario described in this line was a thing of the past, something that (at least in the Western world) had ceased to be true. It seemed that this world (especially the Iberian Peninsula, where our overlords refused to croak until the 1970s) would enjoy rara temporum felicitas at last. Thus had the state of affairs been throughout my relatively short lifespan of nearly 25 years... then a pumpkin with a wig hops onto center stage, and WHAM.
I have never felt more shocked since Bellatrix Lestrange shoved Sirius Black down that vortex.
Just like that epic rap battle states, the world has had quite enough rug-wearing misogynists.
So all we have left to do is hope. Hope is the last thing we will lose until the Moment of Truth arrives. Only time will tell and only hope remains. Yet remember that there is the risk (for instance: yesterday, I went out without my raincoat, in tennis shoes instead of wellingtons, to be surprised by a sudden autumn downpour). Hope, but worry as well. Sample the strychnine little by little before they lace our cup, and the shock of reality will be far less painful.

TENNIS BALLS, MY LIEGE

This is a #4thCentennial post about tennis, Anglo-French relations, warfare, and masculinity. It also explores a more peaceful, better way in which a conflict could have been solved (unfortunately, it was not the way it unfurled in history):

FRENCH AMBASSADOR.

He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,

This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,

desires you let the dukedoms that you claim

hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.

KING HENRY V.

What treasure, uncle?

The treasure chest full of tennis balls as it appears in The Hollow Crown, starring Tom Hiddleston

(AKA Loki, plus best Cassio ever in the history of Othello).

EXETER.

Tennis balls, my liege.

The fuzzy yellow balls of present-day tennis.

KING HENRY V.

We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.

His present and your pains we thank you for.

When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,

we will, in France, by God's grace, play a set

shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.

Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler

that all the courts of France will be disturb'd

with chaces. And we understand him well,

how he comes o'er us with our wilder days,

not measuring what use we made of them.

We never valu'd this poor seat of England;

and therefore, living hence, did give ourself

to barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common

that men are merriest when they are from home.

But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,

be like a king, and show my sail of greatness

when I do rouse me in my throne of France.

What a shame that Henry V chose to settle those matters not with rackets, but with cannons!

A lot of lives could have been spared if there had just been a game of tennis between the two future brothers-in-law. Just Henry and Louis, each one with a racket, sending one another a ball to and fro, and no casualties at all. But, you know, boys will be boys and war will be war... and royals will go balls to the wall over even the slightest squabble.

In fact, that was not the point. The Dauphin's intentions were far more sinister. In fact, Louis just wanted to send his brother-in-law a wordless message with the following implications:

-Henry, you've got no balls (of the gonad kind).
-Henry, suck my balls (of the gonad kind)!!!
-Henry, you're more comfortable wielding a racket than wielding a sword.

Of course, those were major insults to the royal honour, and the declaration of war was impossible to avoid. For Louis was a warmonger of the highest degree who burned with revenge to confront the English...

DAUPHIN

Say, if my father render fair return,
it is against my will; for I desire
nothing but odds with England: to that end,
as matching to his youth and vanity,
I did present him with the Paris balls.

EXETER

He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe:
and, be assured, you'll find a difference,
as we his subjects have in wonder found,
between the promise of his greener days
and these he masters now: now he weighs time
even to the utmost grain: that you shall read
in your own losses, if he stay in France.

KING OF FRANCE

Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full.

LE FOOT ET LE GOWN

This is part of my Shakespeare Fourth Centennial post cycle.

In Henry V, Princess Catherine of France, about to be married to the titular character, gets lessons in her future home country's language from her English chaperone Alice. It all goes well until they come to "le pied", "the foot;" and "la robe", "the gown." The corresponding English words make Her Royal Highness wince: every Francophone courtier in the audience would have spotted bilingual puns based on the similarities between "foot" and "foutre", and between "gown" and "con"...

Katharine:

So I said; “d'elbow”, “de nick” and “de sin”. What do you call "le pied" et "la robe"?

Alice:

“De foot”, madam; and “de gown”.

Katharine:

“De foot” and “de coun”! O Lord in Heaven! These are words of a bad sound, corrupt, gross, and impudent, and not for ladies of honor to use. I do not wish to pronounce these words before the lords of France for all the world. Foh! “le foot” and “le coun”!

OM MIN BLANDADE HÄRKOMST

Here's another Shakespearean treat: a poem based on lines of Troilus and Cressida about what it means to be a third-culture individual (furthermore: from mixed ancestry of two enemy countries). The idea of being split into left and right halves reminds me of Il visconte dimezzato... I have adapted it to refer to my own mixed ancestry:

Om min blandade härkomst vore sâ
att jag kund' säga: den handen är kärnsvensk,
den andra sydländsk; musklerna i ett ben
frân Norden, i den andra kastilianska;
sydländsk mors blod rann i min högra kind,
nordisk fars i den vänstra: Vid Enöga!
I min sydländska hälft det skull'ej finnas
ett ställe som vid Breitenfeld och Lützen
ej ärrats av Nordens klingor och gevär.
Än har gudarna (ifall de existerar)
förbjudit att var droppe jag fâtt pâ min mors sida
skall av skandinavers vapen utgjutas.

THE REAL STORIES BEHIND SHAKESPEARE

THE REAL STORIES BEHIND SHAKESPEARE 
- 
400 YEARS OF SHAKESPEARE

Here are some folktales that may have inspired the Bard and their original endings. Some of them may turn out to be surprising, like tragedies originally having happy endings or comedies originally being rife with cruelty. Shakespeare may have changed some things for dramatic effect and/or assuming the audience knew the age-old folktales since their childhood or adolescence...

TRAGEDIES

• King Lear: "Coat o'Rushes/Juana, the Princess of Salt/Marishka's Salt/The Turkey Girl" (the story unfurls just like King Lear, but with a happy ending: the youngest princess and her aged father, after recognizing one another and reuniting during a feast at her court, both survive their ordeal, he lives with her happily ever after).
• Hamlet: "Havelok" (the dethroned prince of Denmark is fully orphaned by the usurper and whisked away for his safety by sympathetic assassins to Saxon-era England; he is at first a "Cinderelliott" kind of abused manservant, but manages to marry a Saxon princess in his same plight, the fair Goldborough; the two young former royals return together to Denmark, defeat both usurpers, and become king and queen of both realms), Horus/Jason/Forseti/Krishna, "The Child Born from an Egg" (the rightful heir, raised in exile, learns about his heritage, comes of age, and, after a long struggle, successfully defeats the usurper, attaining the rightful place, usually a throne, that was wrested from him).
• Othello: "Genevieve de Brabant," "The Countess of Toggenburg" (a treacherous advisor manages to convince his married liege lord that his wife is unfaithful; the ostensibly killed wife survives and leads an ascetic life; the husband, upon learning the truth, punishes the treacherous advisor, then, having thought his wife dead for a long time, suddenly comes across her by chance, they recognize one another and she forgives his spouse, both leave the cloister and return to the castle hand in hand, reconciled), "Kuchisake-onna" (there is no Iago figure, but the husband accuses the innocent wife of adultery and punishes by slitting her mouth into a Glasgow grin from ear to ear, she dies from the bleeding and becomes a yókai [i.e. a supernatural spirit], haunting lonely streets at twilight, the lower half of her face covered in a surgical mask; she asks the lonely passer-by if she looks good, if the answer is "no," she kills that person on the spot... but if the answer is "yes," she unmasks herself and repeats the question; again, a "no" for an answer means instant death, while a "yes" means that she'll slit the victim's mouth from ear to ear, so that it looks like hers), "Satomi Hakkenden" (the Daikaku backstory subplot; reserved young toymaker Kakutaro marries noble heiress Hinagiku against his stepmother's wishes; Hinagiku swallows Kakutaro's magic rosary bead to protect it from her stepmother-in-law, which causes the young wife's belly to swell; subsequently, Kakutaro's stepmother convinces him that Hinagiku has had an affair and is expecting a bastard child; when Kakutaro confronts Hinagiku, she guts herself with a sword [commits seppuku] to prove her maidenhead and lack of pregnancy, thus proving her innocence at the cost of her life and making her husband retrieve the bead he had lost; after beheading the conniving stepmother, Kakutaro takes on the name of Daikaku and joins other warriors with the same birthmark he has and similar sob story backgrounds who were just passing through the village, since his destiny is intertwined with theirs). ACCORDING TO JACK ZIPES: Here, the plot generally concerns [···] the demonic power from whom she has escaped interferes with her life when [···] her husband is away fighting a war or taking care of some urgent business. She is forced to flee into a forest, [···] Her husband returns from his journey and learns how he has been deceived. He pursues his wife and is reunited with her.
• Romeo and Juliet: "Pyramus and Thisbe" (the star-crossed lovers live in ancient Mesopotamia; their elopement rendezvous goes pear-shaped when she loses her shawl, which is blood-stained by a passing-by lioness [there were Asian lions in those days], causing her boyfriend to believe she is dead and stab himself, which then, when the maiden returns and sees her lover with a dagger through his heart, causes her to stab herself as well; the blood of both lovers dyes some cherries, which hitherto had been white; that's why these fruits are red), "Layla and Maymun," "Farhat and Shireen" (the Middle East is full of stories about lovers whose parents oppose their marriage and who are only reunited in death: Farhat is told by the shah, Shireen's fiancé, the false news of her death and, brokenhearted, jumps off a cliff in despair; Shireen kills herself to avoid marrying the shah).
• Titus Andronicus: Tereus/Atreus/"Blancaflor and Filomena," "The Juniper"/"Peterkin and Little Mary" (innocent children are slaughtered like livestock by the villains, then cooked and served as meat dishes to their [the slain and cooked children's] unwitting parents, who eat the meat; the motivation is usually revenge), "Kachikachiyama, ie Mount Crackle (the wife is slaughtered like livestock, then cooked and served in a ragoût to her unwitting husband, who eats the meat; the motivation of the raccoon who killed and cooked and served the wife appears to be just for fun)"

COMEDIES

• The Taming of the Shrew: "The Lad who Married a Wild Maiden" (the young husband commands several farm animals to give him water in a cup and kills them when they do not obey; then, upon giving his wife the same command, she, frightened, hastens to fill his cup), "The Wooing of Gerda" (cold-hearted, indifferent giantess Gerda is forced to marry fertility god Frey, being threatened at swordpoint with a life of loneliness and hardships if she refuses to marry him),"King/Haakon Thrushbeard" (as punishment for her conduct, the shrewish princess is forced to marry a minstrel, who takes her out of her kingdom into his own, then forces her to do manual labour to survive [first as basket-maker, then as kitchen-maid at court]. The minstrel she has married turns out to be the same prince whom she had mocked at her own court as one of her suitors at the start of the story, and they are reconciled), "The Nicky Nicky Nye" (Jamie's aunt Mary tells him to observe certain rituals to appease the titular freshwater spirit, his young wife Nora accidentally desecrates their water well, the green hand and head of the Nicky Nye emerge every now and then from the water and frighten her; only when the freshwater spirit threatens her baby does mother Nora confront and vanquish her fears).
• The Merchant of Venice: "The Three Caskets" (gender-flipped; a common girl chooses the plain leaden casket and becomes the crown prince's bride), "The Two Caskets/The Lady's Daughter and the Stepdaughter" (Scandinavian version of "Frau Holle": the kind stepdaughter, upon leaving the underworld, chooses a plain wooden casket that turns out to be full of treasure; while the spoiled heiress, her stepsister, upon leaving the underworld, chooses an ornate, jewelled casket that turns out to be full of vermin).
• Much Ado About Nothing: "Genevieve de Brabant," "The Countess of Toggenburg" (a treacherous advisor manages to convince his married liege lord that his wife is unfaithful; the ostensibly killed wife survives and lives an ascetic life; the husband, upon learning the truth, punishes the treacherous advisor, then, having thought his wife dead for a long time, suddenly comes across her by chance, they recognize one another and she forgives his spouse, both leave the cloister and return to the castle hand in hand, reconciled).
• Twelfth Night: "The Warrior Damsel/Belle-Belle/Fât-Frumos/Fantaghirò/Fa Mulan" (the heroine, heiress to a military family and raised as a boy, joins the army in her ailing father's place; she is hailed as a military hero; gender confusion and romance ensue, no twin brother [she is either an only child or the eldest/youngest out of many sisters]), "The Three Crowns/Fifine" (the heroine leaves her home in drag to escape a loveless arranged marriage; gender confusion and romance ensue, no twin brother [she is an only child]), "The Turkey Girl" (Spanish King Lear version [see under King Lear] in which the innocent youngest princess cross-dresses in exile), "The Twelve Huntsmen" (the heroine cross-dresses to be close to her fiancé, who has accepted an arranged marriage, without being recognized; gender confusion and romance ensue; in the end, he recognizes his ex-fiancée, they reconcile and marry for love, the intended bride forgives her fiancé and accepts his decision, no twin brother [she is an only child]), "Silverwhite and Littlebeau/The Twin Knights/Oliver and Arthur" (the estranged twin's fiancée/wife mistakes his twin brother, whom she does not know of, for her partner; he puts a sword in between them in bed to represent their chastity; when the betrothed/married twin is rescued, he jumps to conclusions and kills/seriously injures his single brother; only upon realizing the sword of chastity in bed does he realize the truth and manage to heal/resurrect his twin; all three are reconciled).
• The Comedy of Errors: "Silverwhite and Littlebeau/The Twin Knights/Oliver and Arthur" (the estranged twin's fiancée/wife mistakes his twin brother, whom she does not know of, for her partner; he puts a sword in between them in bed to represent their chastity; when the betrothed/married twin is rescued, he jumps to conclusions and kills/seriously injures his single brother; only upon realizing the sword of chastity in bed does he realize the truth and manage to heal/resurrect his twin; all three are reconciled).
• Pericles: "Snow White" (an innocent maiden persecuted by her envious stepmother/guardian, who commands that she should be assassinated; the maiden is sent by the sympathetic hitman into exile, where she winds up living among rough manly men [mining dwarves in the folktale, pirates in Shakespeare]; she wins the heart of a young prince and claims her rightful heritage).
• Cymbeline: "Snow White" (an innocent maiden persecuted by her envious stepmother/guardian, who commands that she should be assassinated; the maiden is sent by the sympathetic hitman into exile, where she winds up living among rough manly men [mining dwarves in the folktale, woodsmen in Shakespeare]; she wins the heart of a young prince and claims her rightful heritage), "The Trojan Trunk [motif found, for instance, in the Decameron]" (Othello version in which the villain manages to convince that he's slept with another man's wife/fiancée by producing a jewel of hers and/or knowing where she has a certain birthmark and/or what her bedchamber looks like; the villain had entered the couple's bedchamber in secret, concealed inside a large travelling trunk, similar to a Saratoga trunk [hence my "Trojan trunk" designation]; the brokenhearted husband/fiancé commands that his partner be put to death, or leaves her to her fate; she survives and attains her former status; the estranged couple reunite when, once he is made aware of the truth, their paths cross once more by chance, they recognize one another and reconcile).
• A Midsummer Night's Dream: this one is a true confluence of fairytale traditions: beautiful and redoubtable fey king Oberon and his queen; trickster sprite Puck or Robin Goodfellow, who may be one of the inspirations for Robin Hood; love potions and the plants used to brew them, in particular the wild pansy (Viola tricolor), called by folk names "heartsease," "kiss me quick," and "love in idleness."